1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a computer-controlled touchscreen display and, more particularly, to an apparatus and method of formatting a list for display on a touchscreen which more efficiently utilizes the area of a list window within the touchscreen without increasing selection ambiguity.
2. Description of Related Art
Various types of computer-based devices have been developed for communications, information processing and other purposes. Among these devices are personal computers, personal digital assistants, and a relatively new class of devices known as portable intelligent communications devices. Unlike the first two devices, the portable intelligent communications device is designed extensively to be a communications device, rather than just a mobile computer, and as such it includes a computer integrated with communications hardware and software to provide telephony, messaging and information services. To enable at least some of these features, the portable intelligent communications device is able to be connected to the Internet by either a wired link or a wireless link.
It will also be understood that certain software applications are provided within the portable intelligent communications device which facilitate the aforementioned features, as well as other desirable features such as a Personal Information Manager (PIM), games and the like. An exemplary portable intelligent communications device is shown and disclosed in a patent application entitled "Switching Of Analog Signals In Mobile Computing Devices" and having Ser. No. 08/796,119, which is owned by the assignee of the present invention and is hereby incorporated by reference.
Portable intelligent communications devices, like other computer-controlled devices, include a screen or display panel to enable a user to interact with the computer through a graphical user interface. This interaction is oftentimes accomplished by way of a mouse or other pointing device. To input or select information from the screen, the user manipulates the mouse to direct a cursor to the appropriate screen area. Once at the appropriate area, the user selects the item or information by using a mouse button or entering a command or text through a keyboard.
In mouse-based systems, text at a common logic level, such as in a display list, is typically aligned vertically along the left side of the screen display. FIG. 1 depicts an exemplary screen display 10 containing a representative display list 12 from a phonebook software application, such as which may be used to save and group business card information on a portable intelligent communications device or similar computer. It will be noted that screen display 10 includes a title bar 14 (i.e., "PhoneDialer") located in a top window therein, as well as a main control panel 16 including a plurality of tabbed areas which, in the representative application, are designated as "Phone," "Setup" and "Help." A second level of menu choices or control buttons 18 appear after selection of one of the tabbed areas in main control panel 16. In the representative screen display 10, control buttons 18 available under the Phone tab are denoted as "Call," "Transfer," "End," "Hold," "Volume" and "Mute," respectively. A third set of control buttons 20 appear after selection of one of second level control buttons 18. It will be noted that control buttons 20 available under the "Call" button in the representative application are denoted as "Previous," "List," "BC" and "Next". A bottom rectangular area 22 of screen display 10 includes a set of control buttons 24 denoted as "KeyPad," "Speed Dial," "Phone Book" and "Voice Mail," as well as a message window 26 for displaying status information. A fourth set of command options is provided along the right side of screen display 10, as designated generally by numeral 28.
Screen display 10 further includes a work area 30 (otherwise known herein as a list window) having a width W and a height H within which representative list 12 is displayed. Since the size of list window 30 will typically be too small to display all list members 13 of list 12 at one time, a vertical scroll bar 32 is provided therein for stepping between such list members 13. It will be seen in screen display 10 that each list member 13 is a name aligned under the subgroup heading "Personal" for the overall group heading of "Phonebooks." Accordingly, selection of any one of list members 13 causes the aforementioned portable intelligent communications device to retrieve a phone number for the name corresponding thereto, which preferably is automatically dialed by the telephony feature of the device. It will be noted that display list 12 in FIG. 1 is depicted in a typical mouse-based format, where list members 13 (in this case names) are aligned along left side 34 of list window 30. In this format, adjacent list members are separated by a designated interline spacing, identified by reference numeral 36, that is sufficient to enable any one of list members 13 to be selected unambiguously with a cursor.
While the display list format depicted in FIG. 1 is acceptable for mouse-based systems which utilize a cursor, it becomes problematic for other types of systems, such as touch-based systems, in which a user interacts with the computer by touching designated areas on the screen. In a touch-based system, it will be understood that representing display lists in the manner depicted in FIG. 1 leads to selection errors, as caused by the alignment of such list members and the close, interline spacing therebetween. Further, such display list format does not efficiently utilize the limited real estate of list window 30.
FIG. 2 illustrates another screen display 11, similar to that of FIG. 1, in which the presentation of a display list 15 has been adapted for a touchscreen. The panels and control buttons in FIG. 2 are the same as those described with respect to FIG. 1 and, therefore, are identified by the same reference numerals. As shown in FIG. 2, individual list members 17 of display list IS remain vertically aligned adjacent left side 34 of list window 30. In order to accommodate finger-based selection, however, icons or touchable elements 38 are provided as a touch target for each list member 17 and placed immediately to the left of the text associated with such list member. Further, interline spacing 37 between adjacent list members 17 is necessarily increased to reduce the selection ambiguity that would otherwise be created by the size difference between a finger and a cursor.
While increasing interline spacing 37 between list members 17 reduces the problem of selection ambiguity, it also reduces the number of list members 17 that can be displayed in list window 30. This is undesirable given the already limited size of the touchscreen on many computer-controlled devices, such as the aforementioned portable intelligent communications device. Thus, because the time required to find a desired list member 17 is increased and the user-friendliness of the device is therefore decreased, formatting display lists as shown in FIG. 2 is not considered an efficient solution.
Accordingly, it is a primary object of the present invention to provide an apparatus and method of formatting a list for display on a touchscreen which maximizes the number of list members displayed for a given area of the touchscreen without creating selection ambiguity.
It is another object of the present invention to provide an apparatus and method of formatting a list for display on a touchscreen in which the distance between list members is increased over that of a mouse-based system without increasing the vertical area required to display the list.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide an apparatus and method of formatting a list for display on a touchscreen in which the spacing between the touchable elements of adjacent list members have both a vertical component and a horizontal component.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide an apparatus and method in a portable intelligent communications device of formatting a display list, in which the spacing between list member touchable elements is optimized based upon the dimensions of the list window, the total number of list members in the list, the interline spacing between adjacent list members, and the distance required between adjacent touchable elements for unambiguous selection.
These objects and other features of the present invention will become more readily apparent upon reference to the following description when taken in conjunction with the following drawings.